ON Saturday night, Everton were well within their rights to dream of being one of the first teams to grace the new Wembley, should it be ready for this year's FA Cup final day.

But any visions of the stadium's upward curve were quickly obscured by a massive downward one when their campaign kicked off in disastrous style yesterday.

Everton's season plummeted to its lowest low and, in terms of ending their 12-year trophy drought, was emphatically ended by Blackburn's ruthless finishing power.

In terms of FA Cup stories, the old romance we read so much about was replaced by mystery. In fact, the first half can only be described as murder mystery the way the home side were put to the sword – 3-0 down with no way back despite a game attempt to rescue a replay after the break.

The puzzle lay in the fact that the Blues had such a good opportunity to launch the cup run David Moyes' Goodison CV has needed.

A home tie against Blackburn, three places below them in the Premiership, was a far from ideal draw given the amount of teams you go into the third round pot with, but it was still infintely winnable – certainly not set up for their heaviest home FA Cup defeat against top-flight opposition for 49 years.

Especially as Moyes fielded a full-strength side, unlike opposite number Mark Hughes, who could afford to go without leading scorers Benni McCarthy and Shobani Nonda in a starting line-up of six changes.

But Hughes just seems to have a love affair with this competition that Moyes can only jealously glare across the technical areas at.

He won it a record four times as a player and even in his brief managerial career guided Rovers to a Millennium Stadium semi-final when they were still pre-occupied with a relegation battle.

Moyes, on the other hand, hasn't got the past the fifth round while in charge of Everton and even avoiding Manchester United and Chelsea – the previous two teams to knock Everton out – didn't help him break his hoodoo here.

It just seems that in the FA Cup certain omens are unpenetrable.

Something which can't be said for the Everton's defence, and for that matter midfield, which endured a calamitous opening 45 minutes at the hands of Rovers' eager youngsters, who set them on the way to the biggest, and comfortably most disappointing, of their four home defeats this season.

It all had eerie echoes of this stage nine years ago, when Everton followed Liverpool out of the competition on a Sunday afternoon on the last occasion both Merseyside clubs crashed out at the first stage.

But even the despair of going out to Newcastle and an Ian Rush-winner was nothing compared to the embarrassment felt by yesterday's exit.

There were also similarities in the manner – if not the mood – of the last home loss, the pre-Christmas thriller against Chelsea.

Then, it was allowing space for long-range shots that proved Everton's undoing and that proved the case again.

But while the quality of the champions' strikes were just too good for Tim Howard, on this occasion he proved as culpable as the men in front of him who allowed the keeper to be so exposed.

The tone was set by a player who was topping the North West Counties Division Two goalscoring charts three years ago before Blackburn paid Great Harwood Town #20,000 for his services.

And after his first Premiership goal against Wigan on New Year's Day, Matt Derbyshire continued to show little sign of being bothered by the nine-division step-up as he pounced to give Rovers a fifth-minute lead.

It was a chance Derbyshire could hardly have missed after following in from what appeared to be an offside position when Morten Gamst Pedersen fired in a shot that came from Andre Ooijer's dispossession of fellow Dutchman Andy van der Meyde.

Howard's attempt to beat out Pedersen's shot only resulted in him feebly parrying the ball towards goal and it might have gone in even without Derbyshire's lunge to help it over the line.

Everton actually responded well and threatened briefly, having a good penalty shout ignored when Andy Todd palmed a Phil Neville cross back to Brad Friedel.

It would perhaps sum up the bizarre pattern of the afternoon's events that the home side would later be awarded a rare spot-kick to pull it back to 3-1.

However, they almost levelled the tie when van der Meyde dinked a lovely golf wedge-style pass in to Andrew Johnson, whose pull-back was blasted over by Arteta.

But the fact that Pedersen was given more space to fire in another long-range shot – albeit miles over the crossbar – was an indication that Everton hadn't learnt their lesson from the opening goal.

So as Pedersen had a gap of 10 yards between him and the Everton wall in the 22nd minute, the destiny of his free-kick was almost inevitable.

The Norwegian obliged with a curling left-footer over Howard, who was oddly unable to reach it despite it being nowhere near the top corner, although in fairness to the American, Hughes did later admit that the “unpredictable” nature of it being used in the FA Cup was something they plotted to exploit.

Victor Anichebe hit back immediately with a deflected shot that curled inches wide and Lee Carsley also kept Friedel on his toes with a drive always rising over the bar.

But Everton simply lacked the killer instinct of their opponents, which was superbly displayed by Paul Gallagher when he made it 3-0 six minutes before the break, nutmegging Joseph Yobo and drilling low beyond Howard.

And there was still time for more pain in the Everton ranks before Moyes had the chance to tear into them in the dressing room, as the first half ended with Nuno Valente being waved off on a stretcher by a yellow card after he came off worse in a clumsy collision with David Bentley.

Injury added to insult at the end of a half from which the only consolation for the home side was that there were only 24,426 there to witness it.

The second half could only get better and it did yield brief hope as Everton almost immediately signalled their intent to go out fighting.

Friedel tipped over a clever lob from Johnson then Anichebe was denied by Todd's sliding challenge as he homed in on van der Meyde's cross.

Then a lifeline on 69 minutes from the most unlikely source – the penalty spot.

Aaron Mokoena can count himself unlucky to concede it as he appeared to get more of the ball than Mikel Arteta when he challenged him on the edge of the area, but Johnson wasted little time in sending Friedel the wrong way for his eighth of the season.

A second goal for Everton in the subsequent 10 minutes might have made things interesting but Rovers managed to dig in and repel their opponents' increasingly frantic attempts to apply pressure. And the afternoon ended in the disarray it began in as Everton allowed Tugay to haul his 36-year-old legs half the length of the pitch in the 90th minute and force Howard into a save low down to his right.

From this came Rovers' only real spell of pressure of the second half but they still emerged from it with a goal as sub McCarthy pounced on Lescott's air-shot and hammered the fourth into the top corner. It prompted a swift and smooth clearance of the stadium that any group of stewards would have been proud to execute.